The Boring-Ass Guide to Breaking into Comics

A lot of people come to me for advice on how to break into the industry, or how to get licensed gigs, or pitch certain publishers and I have to admit it almost always surprises me. Part of it is this feeling like they must be crazy to look at my career and think “this is the guy who can steer me right” when internally I feel like I’ve been careening across the road. That’s partly impostor syndrome talking, but also just the reality of things looking different from the outside than internally. And they’re both distorted views, with the truth somewhere in between.

It’s flattering and humbling to know that there are people out there who look at my career and think I’ve really got it down pat, when the truth is I don’t even know what I’m doing half the time! Most of the time, I just keep going and hope for the best.

But that’s not really why people ask for advice, is it? Telling someone to just work hard and keep on truckin’ isn’t very helpful when they feel like they’ve been doing that for years with no positive results. And boy have I been there myself!

But the sad and boring truth is that there are no shortcuts I’ve discovered. No magic pills or guarantees. I could probably string together some line of BS into a course and sell it online for $300 a pop, but of all the roadblocks a creative career throws in your way, the only one that’s truly insurmountable is that you just need to keep showing up.

It could be a new pitch, a new issue, hell, a new page. But you really just need to get comfortable banging your head against a wall until one of you breaks.

When I started in advertising, I worked in the design studio - and calling it design is being generous, because it’s not like I was actually designing things the way say, Tom Mueller designs things. I was mostly there to push pixels around on powerpoint decks, make comp images for art directors, and print things as needed. But I wanted to join the creative department, so I started asking some of those art directors how to get that job. I put a portfolio together, decided I liked copywriting better, so redid my portfolio to reflect that, took every side copy job to get experience and lighten the load of the CDs who might be able to move me up, and even won a couple of awards with the first radio ad I made. It still took 7 years before I got moved into the creative department.

The day it happened, I went up to the office of David Lubars, our Chief Creative Officer, to say thanks. He shook my hand, and gave me a piece of advice that was beautiful, and simple, and quite frankly, scary.

Now, he wasn’t being 100% serious, but there is a truth there. You did the work. You’re here. Now you have to prove you belong here.

Luckily, doing that is pretty simple, too, even more so in comics than in advertising, where every piece of work goes through multiple rounds of getting made worse by clients, account teams, and all the other stakeholders. In his book Hey Whipple, Squeeze This, copywriting legend Luke Sullivan called it “getting pecked to death by ducks”.

In comics, you don’t have that barrier - you can take your book straight to Kickstarter, publish it online, and even if you’re working with a publisher in the creator-owned space, you can still do everything in your power to make sure it’s true to your vision of what it can be.

But the insurmountable thing at this stage, if you want to get professional work, is that it has to be great. Even being great is no guarantee, because of those twin devils luck, and timing, but if you want even a ghost of a chance, you have to push your work as far as you are able to, and then try to push it some more.

And I’ll caveat that by saying you don’t need to be immediately great. It’s totally ok to just be where you’re at - but the key is that every time you show up, you have to show up at least a little bit better. And if you keep doing that, odds are that luck and timing will eventually go your way.

This is one I feel like I still struggle with sometimes, so don’t take this as me being mean. But in my mind the most important thing you can do once you are even mildly in consideration is this:

This is a tough thing, because it’s like, how do you keep your cool when you’re talking to people who could hold the keys to you fulfilling a dream? The stakes feel super high!

The trick is to admit and accept the truth that no matter how high the stakes are for you, they are not that high for them. Your Batman story, to you, might feel like the most important Batman story ever, that will stand shoulder to shoulder with DKR or Killing Joke, but to them, it’s one more pitch out of literally thousands.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be enthusiastic, and it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t show interest, but it does mean you just need to chill the fuck out, and realize that you are not the magic bullet that’s going to help them dominate the industry and bring sales to new, untold heights. You’re just somebody with an idea that may or may not sound cool.

When you put an editor on the spot by asking them for work, and they’re not ready to give you work, one of two things happens - either they apologize and say they don’t have anything right now, or they just don’t answer the email because it feels incredibly awkward to say that. And if you keep pushing, they’ll subconsciously start to associate your name more with that awkward feeling than with your actual work, and you really, really don’t want that.

So just be chill, and let things happen. Sure, ask for work every now and then, but don’t press for it. Don’t make it weird.

And that’s about the sum of my boring-ass, magic-bullet free guide to networking your way into mainstream comics, if that’s somewhere you want to be.

Do that, and you’ll give yourself the best chance you can for success. It might not happen fast, it might not happen at all. Or it might just happen in ways you never expected it to. None of it will be under your control. But it never is, so try not to let that get you down!

Don’t forget to pre-order Masters of the Universe: Genesis from your comic shop! Or at the very least, if you don’t have a pull list, tell them you want to check it out! This book is a hell of a lot of fun, both for long time fans, and people just coming in. And remember, we didn’t cast Jared Leto as Skeletor in the movie, so don’t hold that against us.

And while you’re there, make sure to bring up Hello Darkness 23, so you can check out some creepy, spaghetti-western inspired madness from the hands of myself and Stevan Subic!

And keep your eyes on Black Market Presents, too, for the next chilling installment of BLACK EYE. I have to say, this is one of the favorite things I’ve been working on recently. If I had to describe my big vision for the series in a single Hollywood-style line, it would be “Supernatural, as directed by David Lynch.”

This next installment leans heavily into that vibe.

Ok, that’s all the rambling I have in me this week. Hope some of you creators out there found it helpful, and you non-creators found it at the very least interesting.